Chris Sorensen posted in Maclean’s Business Blog last Thursday about Sunquest, a Canadian vacation planning company that is focusing its efforts on flights in the United States.

Sorensen explains that on average, flight in the U.S. are about 30% cheaper than in Canada, resulting in about five million Canadians traveling to across the border for a cheaper flight each year. These costs are attributed to much higher than average rental fees and taxes on jet fuel.

Sunquest has begun a new strategy to offer flights for Canadians from border cities such as Bellingham, WA and Bufffalo, NY to save customers money. Their packages are estimated to save more than $500 in flight costs.

As long as the high costs of Canadian airports continues (as it is likely to), then so will the practise of Canadians flocking south to catch flights in the United States. Sunquest hopes to capitalize on this mass exodus of Canucks, serving its own interests while also protecting Canadians at home.

In response to Nicola’s post titled ‘Identity Theft’, I would like to offer another point of view.

The Toronto Sun article she analysed detailed the lawsuit between coffee giant Starbucks and Black Bear Micro Roastery over the use of “Charbucks” to describe blends of the small business’s coffee. Starbucks lost their lawsuit against Black Bear over alleged copyright infringement.

While Nicola argues that this is example of stealing Starbuck’s brand name and that the court acted wrongly, I have another understanding.

Intellectual property is the exclusive rights to ideas and creations from the mind. However, can we always claim that our ideas are entirely our own? For example, if I create a new type of alpine skis, didn’t I borrow from the pre-existing concept of skis?

Starbucks claims that Black Bear stole their ideas and violated their intellectual property rights. However, they neglect on where their own name came from. ‘Starbucks’ refers to the first-mate on the Pequod, the ship, in the novel Moby-Dick. If Starbucks can try to destroy a small coffee company that has ‘destroyed its image’, why can’t the family of Moby-Dick author Herman Melville be able to sue for intellectual rights over the Starbucks name?

In response to Scott’s post on the introduction of a Bitcoin ATM in Vancouver. I respectfully disagree with his position because I believe that Bitcoins have the potential to revolutionize currency.

Like the Canadian dollar, Bitcoins are a type of fiat money. Unlike representative money (money backed by hard currency such as gold), fiat currencies are an artificial construction. The difference between Bitcoins and traditional currencies are its lack of central control. While Scott sees this as a drawback, I see it as advantageous.

Lack of central authority means that rather than having a banks control the money supply, authority rests in the hand of the digital currency’s users. Power is not limited to a single group such as the Fed, which can control the money supply at its convenience. Decentralized systems are much harder to manipulate. Additionally, they are harder to monitor, guaranteeing more privacy for consumers than Visa or Mastcard, which monitor consumer spending habits.

While Scott argues that PayPal already covers online purchases, Bitcoins take the middleman out of the equation. Last year, PayPal is had $5.6 billion in revenues and consumers pay for their services on every purchase, which would not apply to the use of Bitcoins online. The decentralized nature of Bitcoins is better overall for the anonymity and savings of consumers.

Businesses often lobby government officials in order for favourable policies to be implemented, typically to help them become more profitable.

In the U.S., two of the largest airliners: American Airlines and U.S. Airways have planned a merger to combine their companies as one. If the two airline giants end up merging, they will form the largest airline in the world. However, anti-trust laws question the legality of such proposals.

Anti-trust laws are designed to keep the market competitive. They break up businesses that are large enough to hurt the competitiveness of the market, especially those that become monopolistic. The fear of this merger is that the consolidation of the airline industry will result in higher prices and worse service, ultimately hurting consumers.

U.S. Airways and American Airline have launched a PR campaign to support their decision and have controversially petitioned many members of the U.S. congress to support the merger. Many believe that the Justice Department is giving in to the demands of big business.

Milton Friedman famously claimed that “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase its Profits”, but why should a business deserve to take more from the consumer without providing better service?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/business/baffling-about-face-in-american-us-airways-merger.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0

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A common problem for start-up companies to become successful is their lack of available capital to create and develop their business. Often, they have trouble finding investors or acquiring loans because of the risks involved in starting a business from scratch. In the developing world, these problems are greatly magnified, especially for tech companies. However, despite the odds, tech companies have formed in the most unlikely of places.

In Africa, only about a sixth of the population have access to the internet. Additionally, loan interest rates by banks can be as high as 28% according to the Globe and Mail. These hurdles didn’t stop Abasiama Idaresit forming Wild Fusions, now worth $20 million and growing.

In the developed world, start-ups have significant advantages in funding, available technology, and human capital, resulting from the abundance of investment firms, more access to higher education, and existing infrastructure such as access to the internet.

As Africa becomes more developed, we will see more businesses start up and more overall prosperity, like many emerging Asian and Latin American markets have seen, and tech start-ups such as Wild Fusions will be among the companies driving this development.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/african-and-mideast-business/african-tech-startups-held-back-by-lower-internet-penetration-scarcity-of-early-stage-capital/article15424220/

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm

This week, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers granted the city of London their own internet domain name. Starting in 2014, ‘.london’ will be used to differentiate London businesses and organizations from the United Kingdom’s ‘.co.uk’ domain. London will become one of the first cities to adopt its own internet domain name and it hopes to use this to its advantage. The addition of this new domain name acts as a way of expanding “London’s global brand” and helping the city’s industries associate themselves with the iconic metropolis.

As the internet becomes more important, it will continue to develop as a commercial tool for businesses. The city of London already has established itself as a strong brand through its identity as a commercial center for corporations and consumers, and will further this image by creating a strong internet presence. This point of difference will give London a significant advantage over other cities without such associations.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/european-business/dot-london-city-launches-own-domain-to-boost-online-presence/article15465026/

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